LF computer

Yep that's very helpful thanks. This post is only about the possibility of adding a graphics card to your current system.
You are currently using the on board graphics. There is an empty PCI express x16 slot (for graphics card). The case is half height which means you would be limited to a half height card. The machine also has a 220W power supply which is not ATX form factor so would be difficult to replace. 220W power is on the low side so I wouldn't recommend any graphics card that requires external power.
Since it has an nvidia chipset I would strongly suggest an nvidia graphics card. All of the above pretty well limits you to a GeForce GT 430. Actually I use one of these in my home theatre pc also because it has an HDMI output and integrated audio. It is half height, lowish power, cheap (around A$70). It will definitely be a decent improvement upon what you have now but I think you should consider it as a short term measure. I guess if you are really tight on $$ right now then it could be the way to go.
 
Yep that thread's suggestion of adding a Geforce 8400GS in "hybrid SLI" mode is interesting too. It means you could use both the power of the on board graphics and the 8400GS together to improve performance. My local shop also sells them for around $30. It's cheap, but probably not as good as the GT 430.

So here are your options:
1. $30 GeForce 8400GS - probably ~50% performance improvement
2. $70 GeForce 430 GT - better performance than the above. Personally I would choose this over the 8400GS.
3. New pc :)
 
haha Thanks man.
Do you know what kind of power source i should look for? or thats just not really upgradeable for my pc?

If youre saying thats the best i can do without buying a new pc then im definitely for it, id like to try that out first ya know especially at that kind of price. :p
Im on a budget but i could afford pushing for a new PC under 500 bucks ya know but id definitely like to try the vid card first since you say that would be a pretty good improvement over what i already have :p and itd be tons cheaper.
 
Gonna just ninja this thread to rediscuss the SSD -- isn't the game horribly choppy with addons because of the amount of reading the WoW client needs to do even past loading? I'm wondering if I should get one myself if it isn't horribly expensive.
 
I havent had too many issues with WoW personally, especially choppy ones, only time i get that kind of thing is like a new patch or expansions first day or somethin. Lags lame tho.

I was playing Rift beta event today and some dude was saying he got an ssd and it was a drastic change for the better.

Oh yeah is it possible to put video games on a flash drive and run them properly from it or no?


Also i just encountered something with my computer that i often do and im pretty sick and fucking tired of it.
A lot of times i try to delete folders and my computer doesnt allow me to saying i need permission.
Other than beating the living shit out of it and tearing its fucking guts apart like i always want to how can i delete the files?

Nevermind rebooting fixed it. I cannot tell you how much it pisses me off every single time that crap happens.


Video Card: NVIDIA 7800GT+ or ATI Radeon 9800 SE 256-bit
is a system requirement for one of the new games i might wanna play, hows that compared to mine?
 
Draeleon said:
Gonna just ninja this thread to rediscuss the SSD -- isn't the game horribly choppy with addons because of the amount of reading the WoW client needs to do even past loading? I'm wondering if I should get one myself if it isn't horribly expensive.
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that addons were loaded up when the game loads. Waggz would know best. After that it is possible for them to be able to write to disk so that they can access log files, caches, settings etc. I wouldn't think any of this is significant access that would affect performance. Exceptions would be when you forget to clear out your combat log and it gets huge. Mine got to >2GB once because of that - I think it affected the game at the time. If you have a billion addons then I would think it is more important to have a nice amout of RAM eg 4GB.
With an SSD pretty sure the main thing you would notice is decreased loading times, booting up, zoning into instances etc. I have considered getting one eventually but when I last upgraded my pc I couldn't justify replacing a 10k rpm raptor I've had for a couple of years as a system drive. It works just fine.
Hawnted said:
haha Thanks man.
Do you know what kind of power source i should look for? or thats just not really upgradeable for my pc?

If youre saying thats the best i can do without buying a new pc then im definitely for it, id like to try that out first ya know especially at that kind of price. :p
Click to expand...
Your power supply is not ATX form factor. It is smaller dimensions so they can fit it in a slim case like you have. This just means you can't buy a regular power supply off the shelf that most pcs use. Even if you find someone who sells the power supply you have, you may find you can't get a more powerful one anyway. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Others may know more about this. I have always made sure my pc can use generic parts - something you may want to think about when you get your next pc. Case supporting full height cards, standard power supply.
And yes - I think those are the best options you have for your current pc - you are limited. You have already maxxed out your memory. You probably want more hard disk space for all those games lol.
Hawnted said:
Video Card: NVIDIA 7800GT+ or ATI Radeon 9800 SE 256-bit
is a system requirement for one of the new games i might wanna play, hows that compared to mine?
Click to expand...
That would be a minimum requirement. Your graphics is 8200 - one generation more recent but low end - therefore probably similar to 7800GT. Usually you want something better than what they say on the box to get nice playable performance out of the game.
 
That would be a minimum requirement. Your graphics is 8200 - one generation more recent but low end - therefore probably similar to 7800GT. Usually you want something better than what they say on the box to get nice playable performance out of the game.
Click to expand...

Oh ok cool, i know its minimum but i wasnt sure how the min was compared to what i have ya know. Thanks dude!
And yeah what you were talking about is kinda what im hoping to do with the next pc i get, why i asked about building it. Its very hard to me, all the stupid model numbers and crap makes me shut my brain off.


Maybe you missed this question!
Oh yeah is it possible to put video games on a flash drive and run them properly from it or no? :p

I did a search on the video card you recommended and i got a page that offered comparing them for price or somethin like that.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/buy_now_results_ci.html?id=GFGT430
Do i have to find one of these thats compatible with my pc or would they all work?
 
Different versions/makers of the 430 GT:
Looking at the pics on your search list, almost all are low profile cards except the Zotac ones down the bottom of the list. Hopefully the others have a low profile bracket supplied - you will need this so it fits in your case. The GT 430 I own is made by Gigabyte (halfway down the list) and it definitely has one of these brackets in the box. You will need a screwdriver or something to put it on. The card is also pretty short (like all the pics in your link) so it should fit in your case. Note that the heat sink on the card will take up an extra slot so you wont be able to use the neighbouring slot for anything. Hopefully it is not being used already.
All the cards from different manufacturers are basically the same because they all pretty much follow nVidia's reference design.
Here is a handy list grouping graphics cards into general levels of performance. You can see the GT 430 is a couple of generations better than the 7800GT that you mention above (minimum specs) while your current setup (look for "Integrated: 8200") is waaaaaaay down the list (12 generations).
I'm pretty confident now that you will notice a pretty huge difference. This will hopefully make games playable for the next year or so - not spending much and extending the life of your pc. Hopefully your friend can help when you want to buy a new pc.
 
You could install games on a flash drive or external hard disk. Just make sure when you plug it in it always comes up with the same drive letter (eg e: or f: or whatever)
 
Just to clarify :p if i had games on the flash drive i could just plug it in my pc and play them straight from the flash drive? cuz ill probly get one of those and a video card if i can. :p

Is "generation" the same for pc as it is for ya know real life? :p

So on the list i want low profile?
Price wise theyre all bout the same, how am i supposed to know which ones better?
lol Theres 4 pages of it.
 
Draeleon said:
Gonna just ninja this thread to rediscuss the SSD -- isn't the game horribly choppy with addons because of the amount of reading the WoW client needs to do even past loading? I'm wondering if I should get one myself if it isn't horribly expensive.
Click to expand...

Addons are loaded into memory when you load the game. In fact because of this you can load the game then delete all your addons and still be playing with them. That is why if you add or remove addons it's best practice to completely restart the game. If you make changes to lua files already loaded in the game they can be read by doing a reloadui. The biggest difference you will notice by using a ssd for wow is the progress bar between character selection and entering the game. That's when the heaviest disk activity is.

Also Vye the combat log size shouldn't affect wow's performance due to the fact it doesn't open the file, it appends it. That isn't very memory or disk intensive.
 
Hmm ok. So basically just loading time then... Thanks for the info Waggz.
 
Hawnted said:
Just to clarify :p if i had games on the flash drive i could just plug it in my pc and play them straight from the flash drive? cuz ill probly get one of those and a video card if i can. :p
Click to expand...
Yes. Why are you asking about this? Extra storage space? So you can play the game on a different pc?
Hawnted said:
Is "generation" the same for pc as it is for ya know real life? :p
Click to expand...
No. It is just a convenient way to organise the list from best to worst performance. Cards listed in the same line are of similar performance. Cards listed together might be a high end card for a particular year and a low end card from years later. For example the GT 430 (a very new card released 2 months ago) is listed alongside the 7800 GTX which was an uber card in 2005 selling for 10 times the current price of the GT 430.
Hawnted said:
So on the list i want low profile?
Price wise theyre all bout the same, how am i supposed to know which ones better?
lol Theres 4 pages of it.
Click to expand...
You must have low profile or it wont fit in your machine. They should all be about the same because they all have the same design. The fans/heatsinks look a little different that's all. I mention the Gigabyte card because from personal experience (ie I own one) I know it has a low profile bracket and it will fit in your machine.
By the way some of the cards are listed multiple times because they are sold by different retailers.
 
Vye youre my hero man.
Thank you so much!

And yeah im asking about the flash drive just for more hd space. Ive seen flash drives for like super cheap so i thought i could do that instead of ssd for now.

2 month old model, well yeah dude i got my pc like 3 years ago so i would hope that a 2 month old vid card would be a nice upgrade. :)

Awhile ago my sister told me her flash drive had like a ton of space on it but i just searched for em and they seem pretty small.
I think its an external drive im wantin. :p I assume that i could play games installed on that too eh? The reason i ask is because the first time i heard of zip drives and stuff they were only able to hold like mp3s and stuff but not a video game, thats what i was told back then.
 
btw if you are after more stogage space get an external hard disk with 1TB or bigger. Make sure it supports eSATA because your pc has an eSATA port and it is much faster than USB.
 
You rock!
So any eSATA should be compatible?
I think im gonna hold off on the HD until i see how the video card does and then i may get one. :)
Thank you!
Vid card might take 2 weeks to get here. lol Free shipping man, otherwise it was like $20+ extra just to ship faster, lame! It even came with a $10 rebate! $65!
 
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